Emaar Plans AED12 Billion Office District Beside Dubai Square at Dubai Creek Harbour

The district would give Dubai a new large office cluster away from the established towers of Sheikh Zayed Road, Downtown Dubai and the DIFC, on the eastern bank of the creek. Emaar is pitching it at large companies looking for headquarters, and is putting transport links at the centre of its case: two metro stations will connect directly to the office buildings through air-conditioned walkways, so staff can reach their lobbies without using a car park or a taxi.

"Most business districts are located near a metro. But this one is built on top of it," Emaar founder Mohamed Alabbar said in the company's announcement. "We set out to build the address every ambitious company in the world dreams of," he added. "Dubai Square is that address."

The office towers will be arranged around a central square called Icon Plaza, with direct access to the Dubai Square mall, the metro, four hotels, three urban parks and the creekside promenade, according to Emaar. The developer describes the Creek Harbour metro station as the tallest in the world, with gold structures rising above the water.

Dubai Square itself is planned as an open-air retail and mixed-use destination rather than an enclosed mall, with boulevards that run into the surrounding streets, drive-through shopping, multiple entrances and a direct link to Icon Plaza and the metro station. Emaar said the district would also be anchored by a new Dubai Creek Tower, which it expects to become a global landmark. The company describes the tower as proposed and has not set out its design or schedule.

The office district sits inside a much larger masterplan. Emaar said Dubai Creek Harbour is planned for about 200,000 residents in more than 200 residential towers holding 75,500 homes, with residential plots within a five-minute walk of the mall. The plan includes seven schools, 14 nurseries, two hospitals, 25 clinics, 11 mosques and more than 70 community shops. Across the wider development there will be three metro stations, 17 bus stops and a 7-kilometre loop route, as well as 15 parks, four ecological green corridors, a 4.5-kilometre promenade and a 600-metre urban beach. Open space will make up 13% of the masterplan, and eight more hotels are planned beyond the four around Dubai Square.

The announcement focuses on design and amenities rather than commercial terms. Emaar did not say how the AED12 billion would be funded, whether office space would be sold or leased, which tenants it is targeting, or when construction would start. It has not given a completion or handover date for the office district or for the new Dubai Creek Tower.